


Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

by justspn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring Sam Winchester, Fever, Sick Dean Winchester, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 15:53:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21038786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justspn/pseuds/justspn
Summary: Dean awoke to a calloused hand brushing through his hair."Sammy?" Dean asked groggily. He peeled his eyes open and looked up at his little brother who was watching him with concern."How're ya feeling?" Sam asked, letting the back of his hand rest on Dean's forehead. "You're a little warm."" 'm fine, just tired," Dean huffed. His throat was killing him and his voice made that clear.





	Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

Sam jumped awake to the sound of someone rapping on the door of the motel room. Looking at the clock, Sam grumbled under his breath about being woken up at 4 in the morning. 

The knock came again, more persistent this time. Sam reached over and turned the lamp on before getting out of his nice warm bed. Without checking through the peephole, Sam ripped the door open, ready to yell at whoever had woken him up. All the wind fell from his sails when he saw that it was Dean.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean rasped as he leaned heavily on the doorjamb. 

"What the hell are you doing out here?" Sam asked as he pulled his shivering brother into the motel room. "It's like 14 degrees out there! How long have you been outside?" Sam stripped Dean out of his layers and pushed him into his own pre-warmed bed.

"Couldn't sleep so I went for a walk and forgot my keys," Dean explained, his teeth chattering almost to the point where Sam couldn't understand what he was saying. 

"Why couldn't you sleep? And how long were you out there for? Do I need to start hypothermia protocol?" 

"No, no I'll be fine just give me a minute." Dean coughed into the blanket and Sam winced. 

"Do you want tea or water or anything?" Sam offered, standing up from where he was perched on the edge of the bed. 

"Tea please. My throat is killing me." 

Sam filled the electric tea kettle and let it heat while he dug through the med kit for the herbal tea and honey that he kept especially for sore throats. He also took out the thermometer and some tylenol, just in case Dean was feverish. 

"Here, take your temperature," Sam said as he handed Dean the thermometer. He put the tylenol on the nightstand and went back to pour the hot water into the tea cup. 

"No fever," Dean stated when Sam handed him the warm cup. 

Sam placed his hand on Dean's forehead just to be sure. "Take some tylenol anyway."

"Sure thing, bitch." 

Sam smirked. "Go to sleep, jerk."

XXXXX

Later that morning Dean woke Sam up again. Not purposefully, but still, Sam was awake. 

Dean was in the shower hacking up a lung and it worried Sam. 

When Dean finally left the bathroom a wall of steam followed him into the rest of the room. He sat down on the bed and toweled off his hair. 

"So?" Sam asked, waiting to see what Dean would tell him. 

"So what?" Dean responded. 

"What's going on with you?" Sam watched Dean carefully, looking for a sign he was lying. 

Dean sighed heavily, causing him to cough deeply into his elbow. "Well, last night I couldn't sleep because my chest and throat were bothering me. Add in the cough and here I am." Dean smirked as he said the last part. 

"You have a fever?" Sam asked, trying to figure out if Dean needed to see a doctor or not. 

"Don't think so, but I did just take a 35 minute shower so I'm probably pretty toasty." 

Sam tossed him the thermometer anyway, wanting to see where his temperature was at even if the shower skewed the results. "Want more tea?" 

Dean nodded with the thermometer shoved under his tongue. 

Sam busied himself making the tea while he ran through a lost of possible illnesses in his head. Assuming Dean still had no fever, or at least not a high one, he could have a chest cold or bronchitis. Neither of those things were serious enough to warrant a visit to a clinic, but Sam wanted to keep an eye on Dean to make sure whatever it was didn't turn into anything more serious. 

"Here's your tea. What's your temp?" Sam asked as he set the tea on the nightstand. 

"99.8. But it's just shower heat," Dean mumbled as he crawled under the blankets. 

Sam watched as Dean held the tea and took a tentative sip. "I think we should camp out here for a few days until you're mostly over whatever this is. Especially cause it's so damn cold out." 

Dean nodded and wrapped his cold fingers around the warm mug. "As long as I get the remote, we can stay here as long as you want." 

Sam chuckled and turned the tv on before placing the remote on the blankets by Dean's legs. 

XXXXX

Three days later Dean was driving the Impala half way across the country to look into a case. He had convinced Sam that he felt well enough to hit the road, but he could've easily stayed tucked in that warm motel room for another week. 

It wasn't that he felt sick, exactly, but he didn't feel good. His chest was tight and ached like a bitch and his throat was sore. Other than that, and his persistent cough, he was fine. He never spiked a fever, but he could feel a shiver deep in his bones that wouldn't get the hell out. It was starting to make him grumpy. 

"How much longer until the motel?" Dean asked. He could feel himself growing impatient with having to drive 1500 miles to the next hunt even though they'd only been on the road for half a day. 

Sam looked up from the book he was reading, startled by the tone of Dean's voice. "Umm," Sam glanced at his watch. "7 hours, unless you want to stop early." 

Dean sighed and ran his hand over his face.

"You okay?" Sam asked hesitantly. He could see the sheen of sweat on Dean's face, and how his brother was slowly losing the color in his cheeks. 

"Yeah, just antsy from being cooped up. I wanna be hunting, that's all." Dean coughed harshly into his elbow. 

Sam really fought the urge he had to reach over and feel Dean's forehead. "Okay. Well, let me know if you want me to drive for a bit." 

“Yessir,” Dean mocked. He cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders, concentrating on the road in front of him. After a few minutes he broke the silence that had settled between the two brothers. “You got any cough drops stashed over there?” 

Sam smirked and pulled a brand new bag out of his coat pocket. He ripped it open and let Dean dig for one. 

“Thanks Sammy,” Dean said. He unwrapped the drop and popped it in his mouth. Once he got a taste of it a smile broke out on his face. “You got my favorite ones!”

“Well, you don’t actually use any other flavor,” Sam said. He zipped the bag back up and left it on the seat between them. 

Roughly 7 hours later, Dean parked the Impala in front of their motel room. "Wanna go check us in?" Dean asked, hoping Sam would make the trek across the parking lot to the office so he wouldn't have to. 

"Yeah, sure. Be right back." Sam got out of the car. Dean sighed and let his head rest on the steering wheel. He hated to admit it, but he was totally wiped out from driving all day. He didn't feel any worse than he did when they left this morning, but he felt like he could sleep for a whole week.

Dean jumped slightly when Sam opened the door of the Impala. 

"We're in room 5. You okay?" Sam felt worry fall like a rock into his stomach when he saw Dean practically asleep on the steering wheel. 

Dean pushed himself upright and nodded while yawning. "Yeah, just wiped out." 

"Well let's get you inside and you can go to bed," Sam said. He grabbed both of their bags and led the way to the room. 

Dean followed after him, too tired to pretend he was back to feeling 100%. He sat down on the bed farthest from the door and started unlacing his boots. Once they were kicked to the corner, he stripped out of his jeans and flannel and crawled under the blankets. 

By the time Sam had gotten situated, Dean was out cold. Sam turned out the lights and settled into his bed with his laptop, prepping himself on the lore of the monster they were on their way to kill. 

XXXXX

Dean awoke to a calloused hand brushing through his hair. 

"Sammy?" Dean asked groggily. He peeled his eyes open and looked up at his little brother who was watching him with concern. 

"How're ya feeling?" Sam asked, letting the back of his hand rest on Dean's forehead. "You're a little warm." 

" 'm fine, just tired," Dean huffed. His throat was killing him and his voice made that clear. 

Sam stood up, giving Dean enough space to prop himself up on the headboard and asses how he felt. 

Bringing back some water and the thermometer, Sam perched on the edge of the bed again and gave Dean the thermometer. While they waited for the reading Sam looked his brother over. Dean was pale except for the dark circles under his eyes and the flush of fever high on his cheeks. Sam noticed how Dean's hands were shaking ever so slightly. 

"100.9," Dean read when the thermometer beeped. 

Sam handed over the glass of water and sighed. "That's not a good sign dude." 

"Just give me some Tylenol and let me sleep and I'll be fine," Dean grumped, sliding back under the blankets. 

"You wanna stay here or hit the road?" Sam asked, unsure of what Dean wanted to do. Usually when Dean got sick he pushed himself to unconsciousness, but because they were both unburdened with emotional trauma at the moment, Sam thought maybe Dean would want to take some time off. 

"We should hit the road. People are still getting hurt by whatever that thing is that's in town. We gotta get there." Dean groaned when he flopped himself out of bed, and then slowly made his way into the bathroom to shower. 

Sam ran his hand through his hair and sighed. If Dean's fever got any higher he would need to see a doctor to get checked for pneumonia. As much as Sam hated to admit it, that was probably much closer in the future than Dean thought, which was why he was determined to get on the road. 

XXXXX

Sam swallowed nervously when Dean didn't put up a fight when he took the keys to the Impala from Dean's hand. Dean always wanted to drive, even when he was on death's door. 

"I'm gonna be asleep soon, no point in pretending I can drive all day," Dean said when he noticed Sam's worried expression. He pulled the spare blanket out of the trunk and crawled into the backseat- another thing so uncharacteristic of Dean that Sam had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't having a nightmare. 

"Let me know if you want to stop. We can always call Bobby and have him put someone else on the case," Sam said once he was in the driver's seat. 

Hours later, Dean woke for the first time since leaving the motel. He immediately noticed how unwell he felt. There was the usual sore throat and cough, but now he could tell he was running a temperature. He slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes as he went. He had a cranking headache, he realized, once his head was no longer in line with his heart. 

"Hey, how are you doing?" Sam looked at Dean through the rearview and saw that, if anything, Dean was worse off than he was this morning. 

"Not feeling so hot Sammy," Dean admitted, his voice giving out on him halfway through the sentence. 

"Tell me what's going on," Sam said. He wanted to have hope that Dean wasn't a walking bag of pneumonia, but he highly doubted that was the case. 

"Feel worse than this morning. Headache now, and I think I have a fever. Kinda nauseous too." Dean pulled the blanket up higher around his shoulders and shivered. 

"Dean," Sam paused, unsure of what to say that would make Dean feel better about feeling so shitty. 

"Think you should call Bobby," Dean whispered before Sam could think of anything. 

"Oh, okay. I will." Sam saw a gas station up ahead and slowed so he could pull into the parking lot. Once he parked he turned around to face Dean. 

"Sorry we drove all this way for nothing," Dean whimpered. 

Sam reached up and felt Dean's forehead. He was burning up, which explained why Dean was getting teary eyed over abandoning a case. "Hey, don't worry about it. We'll find a place to stop for a bit and get you feeling better. Don't worry about it."

"Okay," Dean said, wiping a stray tear that had fallen from his cheek. 

"Want to move up front until we find a place to stop?" Sam suggested, thinking maybe Dean would feel better if he could pretend he was part of the action. 

Dean nodded and slowly made his way up over the front seat. Once he was settled, he covered his eyes with his hand. "I should've stayed back there," he whispered, swallowing thickly. 

"Did that upset your stomach?" Sam asked. 

Nodding, Dean let out a groan and lurched to open the door. "Gonna be sick," he whispered as he flung open the door. 

Sam winced as Dean vomited onto the pavement. Reaching into the glovebox, he pulled out some napkins and a bottle of water. 

When Dean was finished throwing up he took small sips of the water. His throat hurt significantly worse now, but his stomach couldn't handle too much water at the moment. Even the small sips felt dicey. 

"I hate to say it Dean, but I think you need to go to the doctor. All your symptoms line up with pneumonia," Sam said, capping the water when Dean was done with it.

Dean just nodded and settled back into the seat, eyes glazed over with fever and exhaustion. 

This wasn't the first time Dean had gotten pneumonia from bronchitis. Sam guessed that Dean remembered what it felt like from last time and knew that's probably what he was suffering from. 

"I'll Google a clinic while you rest. We'll get you feeling better in no time, okay?" Sam typed a nearby clinic into his GPS and looked worriedly over at Dean. 

"Stop staring bitch, just drive." Dean's voice was barely audible, but hearing his nickname made Sam smile. 

"Fine, jerk."


End file.
